After an exciting Round of 16, 8 teams prevailed and they are Manchester City, Napoli, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, AC Milan, Chelsea, Inter Milan, and Benfica. The draw was done after the games and it gave us 4 great matchups, which the Soccer Alarm will predict the winners (hopefully) all correctly.
Benfica vs Inter Milan
The matchup between Benfica vs Inter Milan will result in two very close legs as Benfica, who are the top rated team in the Portuguese league were able to destroy their Round of 16 opponents (Club Brugge) with a score of 7-1, meanwhile Inter Milan barely beat the 2nd best team in Portugal, FC Porto by just 1 goal on aggregate although Porto got 1 red card in each leg, making it considerably easier for the Inter Milan who are currently in second in Serie A. With all this in mind, the Soccer Alarm’s pick to win this matchup is Benfica, mainly because of their domination in the Round of 16.
Manchester City vs Bayern Munich
The most competitive game will surely be the one between two heavyweights of modern soccer, Bayern Munich and Manchester City. These two teams have a lot in common, they both won their domestic leagues twice in a row in the two previous years (Bayern hasn’t lost the Bundesliga since 2012), they are both in second in their leagues this year, and they are both hungry for a Champions League victory, especially Man City, because they have never won the competition. The Soccer Alarm’s final verdict on this matchup is that Manchester City will win because of the scoring threat Erling Haaland provides, which ended with him scoring 5 goals in his last Champions League match despite only being in for 50 minutes of the game.
Real Madrid vs Chelsea
After Real Madrid’s domination of Liverpool and Chelsea’s comeback against Dortmund, both of these sides will be feeling incredibly confident coming into this match, which will certainly lead to some great soccer being played. Real Madrid and Chelsea will definitely be feeling the need to win this game because they have both flopped in their domestic leagues, in La Liga, Real Madrid are in second, but they are 12 points off the top, which is terrible for a team that won the Champions League and last year’s edition of La Liga, while Chelsea are even worse off, they are in 10th in the Premier League, 31 points off the leaders, Arsenal. In this matchup between two great sides, the Soccer Alarm predicts that Real Madrid will win, because they were able to beat Liverpool 6-2 and Liverpool are higher in the Premier League table then Chelsea.
AC Milan vs Napoli
This will be an interesting game between two Italian teams that could result in a game where tensions flare, as they often do between top Italian teams. Napoli have been the most unexpected team this season, as they were barely in the title race for last year’s Serie A, but now they are leading the Serie A by 19 points and they won their difficult Champions League group that included Liverpool, Ajax, and Rangers. AC Milan have fallen after winning the Serie A last year, they are now in 4th, which is 23 points behind Napoli, but they were up against a harder opponent in the Round of 16, Tottenham, who they beat 1-0, which might give them an advantage of being more ready for a tight game, because Napoli faced an easier opponent, Eintracht Frankfurt, who they beat 5-0. Because of their surprising but incredible recent form the Soccer Alarm picks Napoli to be victorious in this matchup.